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WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said the sentence was handed down Thursday. Schurick also must serve 500 hours of community service. He was not fined, Miller said.

Schurick was convicted in December on charges of fraud related to the robocall he authorized on election night. The call suggested the election was over and that Gov. Martin O'Malley had defeated challenger Bob Ehrlich. Polls were still open when the calls went out.

"This case needs to send a message to anyone who would interfere with someone's right to vote," Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill said in court. "It is unacceptable."

Miller said Schurick had hoped for probation before judgment, the lightest sentence possible. His jail sentence was for one year, but all suspended.

"Mr. Schurick, I condemn the action. I do not condemn you," the judge told Schurick.

While state prosecutors did not seek jail time, they asked that the sentence be severe enough to deter others.

Schurick himself asked the judge to consider his 30 years of public service, not where he was at 4:30 p.m. on Election Day 2010, when he approved the robocalls in a phone conversation with consultant Julius Henson.

"In addition to a mistake, in addition to a violation of the law and more importantly to me it was, in fact, a profound personal failure," Schurick said. "I have paid and I will continue to pay a price for that failure."

Schurick took responsibility for authorizing the call, which was written by political consultant Julius Henson, but he denied it was intended to suppress the black vote. He said the intent was just the opposite.

"It was aimed at motivating a few thousand African-American voters who we believe had not yet voted for Bob Ehrlich," he said.

Prosecutors called the sentence appropriate, Miller reported.

Henson also faces trial in the robocall case. His trial is set for the end of April.